


It's All About Timing

by A_Damned_Scientist



Category: Farscape
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Damned_Scientist/pseuds/A_Damned_Scientist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe, diverging at Bad Timing</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's All About Timing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Vinegardog for beta duties.
> 
> This is a sequential series of related stand alone fics, posted here as chapters of one fic. No idea when this will be over or where it is going. I will alter the story notes to make it clear when Im done with it.
> 
> Not mine and no money made.

“I'm coming with you,” Aeryn announced, marching in to the docking bay and taking instant ownership of the situation.  
  
“Aeryn, we got one shot at the wormhole before the Scarrans arrive,” John countered, continuing to make his preparations. It was funny how their relationship had changed over the years:  During his first year or so he would have acquiesced, thinking it might curry favour with her. More recently he would have told her to sling her hook. Or simply ignored her. Now he just wanted to be sure she understood the full ramifications, wanted to be sure that they’d covered every base and had their plans straight and aligned.  
  
“Pilot's explained this manoeuvre to me. He's not very optimistic.” Aeryn tried to verbally pin him in one place, to stop him from doing his stuff and give her his full attention. Deciding it would probably be best, for all sorts of reasons, if he did so, he stopped moving and looked her in the eye, although he did continue to tinker, more to give his hands something to do than anything else.  
  
“If it doesn't work, we could be stuck on Earth.” He laid it out for her, as clear and stark as he could.  
  
“There are worse places,” she countered, clearly not put off from coming with him by the prospect of being stuck on his backwards little planet. Well, that was a step forward. When had she ever previously been anything but negative about being stuck on Earth?  
  
“Not if the Scarrans get there,” he laid it out for her again, the cold, hard truth. This was no time for not facing up to worst case scenarios.  
  
“Then we'll have to do the best we can.” Well…  if that was how she felt…  he was fine with that. After a long pause he patted his module.  
  
“What did you imagine... for your life?” he asked her, fixing her with his gaze, wanting to see as well as hear her reaction.  
  
“Service, promotion, retirement, death. You?” Typical Aeryn. Clean, unvarnished, unadorned, and, he knew, totally answering his question of what she had imagined, rather than what she now wanted. He almost laughed at the way she had inadvertently sidestepped lifting the veil on her emotions.   
  
“This is exactly what I imagined.” A tiny grin cracked across Aeryn’s face as he returned to his work, emboldening him to add: “And a couple kids.”  
  
‘~’  
  
“Calm down, Pilot,” Aeryn’s soothing voice helped to calm her friend, as did the loving way she cradled his head in her arms as she spoke. “Breathe.”   
  
With her help and reassurance, Pilot finally managed to get his breathing more regular and under control.   
  
“That's it,” Aeryn continued to soothe him as he managed to get a grip on his emotions. “Now tell me what the matter is.”  
  
“Moya and I have never been at greater odds,” Pilot confessed, his voice sounding confused, faltering as he vocalized his turmoil. “We've never disagreed so fiercely.”  
  
“Over what, Pilot?” Aeryn gently pressed the point.  
  
“I - haven't been entirely honest about not being able to help Crichton…” Pilot confessed, before, to Aeryn’s surprise, revealing the full details of John’s plan and Pilot’s self-confessed dishonesty.  
  
‘~’  
  
“We need to talk, John,” Oh-oh, John thought. Aeryn had her serious game-face on so John stopped working on packing his travel bag and allowed her to steer him to the edge of the bed. He accommodated her further by lowering himself into a seating position, as she herself squatted into a crouch, forearms balanced on thighs, his hands clasped in hers as her eyes demanded his undivided attention.  
  
“Pilot told me about your plan,” she opened. John nodded cautiously, encouraging her to go on. “And about you asking him to fly… You know, it’s really not necessary for Pilot to fly this…?”  
  
“But I can’t do it Aeryn!” John interrupted, irritated at the thought that even Aeryn was siding against him. “I’m not smart enough, I’m not fast enough I’m…” she shushed him with a long-suffering arched eyebrow, a slight sigh and a pacifying finger on his lips.  
  
“You’re forgetting… “ She shook her head ever so slightly. “Who flew Lo’La through the wormhole to pick you up from Erp, and then to get us back to Moya?”  
  
“You did… so what…? Following a beacon is one thing but this…  It’s not like dusting crops...” A more pronounced eyebrow raise by Aeryn wisely silenced him.  
  
“Who is the best Pilot you know?”  
  
“You are.” He waggled his head slightly. Being Top Gun wasn’t enough. Not this time. “But it’s not just piloting skills, it’s being able to see the wormhole, it’s having that milli-microt coordination…”  
  
“Smiley…  food cube… faces…” her strange interjection derailed his train of thought and made him frown.  
  
“You what?” He blurted out. She sighed.  
  
“Are you forgetting - I share Pilot’s DNA…” She explained slowly and carefully. “John, I can see the wormhole forming, too. I can do this, as well as Pilot, maybe better. And we’ve already agreed I’m coming anyway. So…. There’s no need for Pilot or Moya to risk themselves.”  
  
John slowly processed what she had said, wondering why on Earth he hadn’t thought of that. Well, he had been distracted recently, what with everything else going on. He leant in, cupped her cheeks in her hands and locked eyes with her. “I love you.”  
  
“I love you too,” she whispered back before their lips met in a soft but heartfelt kiss.  
  
‘~’  
  
Aeryn looked out of the transport pod’s window, drinking in the beautiful sight of Moya for what she knew might be the last time. The giant leviathan, her home for most of the last four cycles, floated in the inky-black serene emptiness of space. She was the most beautiful thing, save John, that she had ever seen. She fervently hoped that they would be able to see this through and return to their home, but if not? She wanted to remember this moment, this view, wherever she ended up. Where ever her new home might be.  
  
“You got the kitchen sink here? You think we really need all this stuff?”  The sound of John fussing around behind her barely distracted her, beyond the not unhappy thought that whatever might happen, at least they would be facing it together.  
  
“I hope not,” she shrugged. “But we don't know what we're going to need.”  
  
“Yeah.” John came up behind her, his hands settling on her hips, his nose whiffling through her hair, seeking an ear, maybe her neck. It felt nice. It felt more than nice. Concentrate! She told herself as his breath tickled her skin. “Sorry to screw up your life again.”  
  
“Just as long as you know it's all your fault,” she replied as his nose brushed tantalisingly against her earlobe.  
  
“Me and my damn wormholes.”   
  
Aeryn was just trying to formulate a retort when John pre-empted her, his tone changing from amused and playful to serious and nervous as he suddenly stepped away from her.  
  
 “The wormhole cycle's gonna to start in about 30 microts,” John announced, both to her and to the crew remaining aboard Moya.” You might want to grab onto somethin'.”  
  
Aeryn instantly refocused on the task at hand. She moved swiftly to the pod’s pilot seat D’Argo’s voice came over the comms, urgent, full of concern as he advised:  
  
“John, Aeryn - the Scarrans are less than an arn away!” the Luxan told them before adding with a tone of grim, warrior-honed stoicism “Good luck.”  
  
“Less than an arn!?” Aeryn hissed, allowing her words to spill out almost as fast as she spoke them – time was so short that there was no time to formulate her arguments.  
  
“Frell, I know!” John answered with a slightly panicked air as he fretted over the co-pilot’s controls.  
  
“John, there may be no time for a full cycle of the wormhole on the other side. We have to close it now, from this side, to be sure…”   
  
His eyes locked with hers. There was no time for words from either of them. They were down to microts before the wormhole opened.  Looks laden with meaning flashed between them. If they did this now, they would, at best, be trapped on Earth. But if they didn’t, the whole plan might fail and the Scarrans might reach Earth before they could close the wormhole from the other side. At least they were together. And there were worse places that they could be than Earth, after all.  
  
John nodded his agreement. His arm reached out and his fingertips lovingly grazed her cheek.  
  
“You and your timing!” Aeryn sighed as he moved his hand away, allowing her to fly unimpeded or distracted by him.  
  
 “I love you…” he heard him say as she nudged the Pod forward, readying it in time and space for its intersection with destiny, for its appointment with the event horizon of the wormhole.  
  
The nose of the pod brushed against the edge of the newly-forming wormhole just as Aeryn opened the throttle and powered them forwards, out of her own time and space and into the maelstrom in between.   
  
‘~’  
  
Three arns had passed, with no sign of the Scarrans. No sign of the wormhole. And also, unfortunately, no response from Moya to John and Aeryn’s hails.  
  
It looked like the plan had worked… worked only too well. They were stuck here. With nowhere to go but a planet full of billions of Crichtons.   
  
Aeryn rolled her eyes at the memory of her conversation with John, cycles before. She was half amused and half terrified. Still, at least the Oomans had muppets. And chocolate. And ice cream.   
  
“Aeryn - I have a question,” John disturbed her reverie, pulling her down to sit opposite him at the side of the pod. He looked serious. Frell, everything about their situation was serious, and John didn’t know the half of it. She decided it was best to tell him, now, before they did anything else.  
  
“Can I go first?” She pleaded.  
  
“Yeah.” John shrugged, seemingly thrown by how vulnerable and desperate she knew she must have looked and sounded.  
  
“When I was on the Command Carrier, I went to see a surgeon,” she began, trying to get her thoughts in order and her words out ‘straight’. Frell, she wished she had rehearsed this more, but the last few days had been so hectic! “I was really worried about what the Scarrans did to me. The fetus has been released from its stasis. So I'm having a baby.”  
  
John’s face betrayed so little. Why, for once, was he proving so hard for her to read?  
  
“You okay?” he asked . She shook her head and nodded at the same time, allowing what she hoped was a positive sound to escape her suddenly dry throat. Give me some emotional feedback, John! Her pounding heart pleaded. “And the baby?”  
  
“It's yours,” she blurted out, still completely at a loss and desperate to know how John was taking her news. He wasn’t giving her anything to go on – no words, no expression, no physical response. He just sat there unmoving, his words bland and neutral. “I just wanted to tell you. Hope it doesn't change anything? “  She tried once more to elicit some sort of reaction, to learn where she stood with him.  
  
John stared at her. Was he blanking her? Was he angry? What the frell was he thinking!?  He looked away and his mouth twitched. After what seemed to Aeryn like an eternity of uncertainty he returned his gaze to her.  
  
“Umhmm... well it changes everything.” Aeryn stared back, fearing the worst now, but not wanting to show her feelings. Her worst fears began to surface: Stuck on Earth, pregnant…. With a John who wanted nothing more to do with her.  
  
John suddenly stood, causing her to flinch away in surprise and fear. He threw his arms wide and bellowed at the roof of the pod.  
  
“WE'RE GONNA HAVE... A BABY! YEAH!” He shouted, flipping the universe a finger. “FRELL YOU! WE ARE GONNA HAVE - A BABYYYYYYYYY!”  
  
“WE'RE HAVING A BABYYYYYYYY!” He shouted again and Aeryn’s worst fears melted away. She almost laughed, almost cried with relief.  
  
“Sit down before you fall down,” she reached towards his coat to pull him back down. “Are you all right?” she asked, her relief now emerging, lightening her tone into laughter.  
  
“Ye-aah. Whoo!” John blew out a breath.  
  
“Are you happy?” she asked, still seeking reassurance, needing to confirm that everything was alright between them.  
  
“Yeah.” John replied, grinning like an idiot, making her heart soar.  
  
“What was your question?” she asked, trying to compose herself.  
  
“Oh God - um...” John stumbled, clearly trying to order his thoughts into words. He reached his hand into his coat pocket and pulled something out. Then, to Aeryn’s utter confusion, he climbed down onto his knees and took her hands in his.  
  
“Will you marry me?” He asked.  Aeryn was stunned, unable to speak as she counted her heartbeats.   
  
“Yes.” She finally whispered, nodding, before reaching out towards him and pulling herself onto his lap for a long, and joyous kiss.  
  
She wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, holding on to each other, revelling in the moment, but it was time well-spent. Where else did they have to rush to be, after all? Finally they came up for air.  
  
“C’mon,” John stared seemingly into the deepest recesses of her soul and unnecessarily brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “I wanna take my girl home to meet the folks… But properly, this time.”


	2. Touch, Taste, Sight, Sound, Smell.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day back on Earth is full of new experiences for Aeryn.

“Look, the wormhole’s closed. Nothing’s coming through. We can take our time debriefing,” John snapped at Holt and, by implication, at the couple of Generals flanking him. “Finish up tomorrow.”   
  
Aeryn looked tired – she was stretching her back in a most un-Aeryn way – maybe the baby was already causing her discomfort? Hell, he felt tired, and he wasn’t recently rescued from Scarran torture and pregnant to boot. They had been at it for arns, sitting in a comfortless room being grilled about everything down to the price of grolack in the UTs. It wasn’t just tiring, it was tiresome. But beyond any discomfort, John wanted Aeryn somewhere friendly, which meant as far away from these goons as possible. Her revelation that the pregnancy had been released had given John plenty of reasons both to understand why she might be uncharacteristically fatigued and to want her away from this place. He wanted her surrounded by people he trusted rather than people he categorically did not.  
  
“Just another hour or so, Commander Crichton. I’m sure you appreciate that there are things the President needs to know immediately…. “  Holt smugly replied.  After announcing their return to Erp, having closed the wormhole, there had followed a low-key landing at Canaveral and a light lunch of hastily convened sandwiches. Then, once the Generals had arrived, John and Aeryn had been plunged into the icy waters of interrogation, or as Holt preferred to put it, debriefing.  
  
“Fine…  OK, but you haven’t asked Aeryn anything for hours –   there’s no need for Aeryn to be here. She’s tired. Dad, can you take her home?” It wasn’t really a request and it wasn’t couched as one.   
  
“Sure thing, son,” Jack replied, his authoritative tones sealing the deal.  
  
Holt and the military guys seemed unhappy with the idea but didn’t verbally protest. Well, they could go swivel. Aeryn wasn’t on their payroll, so unless they were going to risk detaining her against her will… No? he didn’t think so. John could see from their lack of explicit protests that they were going to fold on keeping Aeryn, so long as he stayed a bit longer to sweeten the pill.  
  
“I’ll be along as soon as I can, hon,” he allowed himself a smile at her as she and Jack began to stand to leave. “Love you.” He called after her. Jack arched an eyebrow, silently registering the public display that his son and Aeryn Sun were now officially together, while she simply nodded back at John then turned to go.  
   
‘~’  
  
Aeryn stretched out, allowing the cocoon of warm air inside Jack’s land-vehicle to lull her into a state of near-sleep. Despite being separated from John, she found the driving experience to be strangely relaxing - the comfortable leather seats, the night time landscape of light and darkness slowly unfurling before her eyes. Everything was so different from how it looked during the day - it was like a whole new world to wonder at.   
  
“So, I guess John finally worked out how he felt about you?” Jack opened, evidently trying to engage her in conversation.  
  
“Mmm. Hmmm.” Aeryn slumped into the seat and made a good impression of someone too tired to talk. Jack seemed to take the hint and turned on the sound system of the car.   
  
Discordant and yet soothingly mystic tones wormed their way into her brain. Soon they mixed with ominous bass tones, eventually giving way to a more uplifting bass-tenor brass mix, swelling with strings into the whole orchestra before subsiding back into mystery then swelling again, this time with percussion into a crescendo of strident chords, finally joined by ethereal bell-like tolling.  
  
Aeryn could scarcely believe what she was hearing - neither in John's singing nor in her previous visit to Erp had she heard anything like the strange music that slowly, comfortably burrowed into her ear and took root in her brain. After several minutes of aural wonder she decided she had to risk conversation with Jack, she had to momentarily break the calming spell, the wondrous feeling of well-being in which the music was bathing her thoughts.  
  
"What is this?" she asked. “Mew-sick?”  
  
Jack chuckled softly and smiled: "You like it? It's called Saturn. By a guy called Holst. Reminds me of that trip we made…” his words recalling the time, monens earlier, when she had flown him in her Prowler to Saturn and had talked about the decisions John had to make and of his feelings for her.  
  
"It is... indescribable,” Aeryn stirred a little more. “Why didn’t John mention that there was mew-sick like this on your planet?"  
  
"I think John's more into his jazz and blues and stuff….” He paused. “Your planet too, now, though?" He ventured. Aeryn could almost feel the verbal pounce in Jack's hopeful question. She opened her mouth to say something, but only managed to clear her throat. Jack, seeming to sense her difficulty in speaking about such things, prompted her.  
  
“I’m guessing, from today, that John sorted out his feelings….  About you… And Earth…?” He kept pausing. Aeryn suspected in order to allow her to reply. When she did not he probed deeper:  “You too? I guess your last visit can’t have put you off? ”  
  
“Yes…” Aeryn stumbled a little, unsure whether Jack’s question referred to John or to Earth. She elected for the safer interpretation. “John and I are together. For ever.”  
  
“And Earth? How do you feel about being stuck here?”  
  
“For ever. No matter where that is,” Aeryn reiterated.   
  
“Looks like John made a good choice. I’m pleased for you both," Jack nodded. Aeryn glanced sideways at him. His usual neutral frown was displaced by a broad smile. Perhaps her words had conveyed more than she had imagined?  
  
Disturbed as to how much Jack seemed able to glean from just a few words, she headed off further enquiries with the tiniest of shrugs and a more obvious yawn and stretch, averting her gaze through the side window. Jack seemed to take the hint: "Anytime you want advice on more music like this…?”  
  
“Thank you. I reckon that John doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does about what Erp has to offer.”  
  
Jack snorted before finally reverting into silence, mercifully allowing her to both avoid pursuing a potentially uncomfortable conversation and to continue to enjoy the sublime music still filling every nook and cranny of the vehicle. A new piece of music was now playing. It was clearly connected to ‘Saturn’, yet less strident and more ethereal, with a choral element, like Zhaan singing. Aeryn reached across and turned up the volume until the sublime music filled the car, drowning out all other sound.  
  
 ‘~’  
  
Aeryn sat down heavily on the couch, tipped her head back and rolled her eyes shut. She wallowed in the peace and quiet that enveloped her. She could have been anywhere: back on the command carrier where she had lived most of her life - except there, she would never have really had such a moment alone except when asleep; back on Moya - except there, there would have been the constant, quiet and comforting thrum that characterised the living ship, part metabolic, part mechanical,.  
  
But she wasn't in either place, of course. She was on Erp, John's home planet, for the second, or was it the third time of visiting? And she was in Jack’s house. Her last memory of this room was when the Skreeth had attacked, but it has been completely rebuilt since then.  It looked like nothing more violent than a game of rock paper scissors had ever taken place here.  
  
The sound of Jack clattering around in the kitchen finally broke the silence. Was he talking to himself out there, or was there someone with him? Surely John couldn’t be back so soon? If not John, then who? An edge of uncertainty crept into her mind and began to wake her up. She was just about to stand and investigate when the sound of Olivia's soft, concerned tones rose above the clatter, easing her concerns. At about the same time a strangely easing smell reached her nostrils.  
  
“Hey, Aeryn,” Olivia breezed into the room, broadcasting her welcome with her smile and easy manner. She carried a tray, laden with some sort of boxes. “How’ve you been keeping?”  John’s sister smiled and set the tray on the low table between the sofas, revealing  a collection of what Aeryn recognised from her last visit as ‘take-out food’, although the details of it were unfamiliar to her. She had missed so much on her last  visit, what with John’s determined efforts to ignore her once Caroline had appeared. Aeryn struggled upright and flashed a smile back at Olivia. “Dad texted me from the base and asked me to come over and bring something to eat,” The younger Crichton explained.  
  
Olivia settled to kneel on the far side of the table, watching Aeryn with friendly intensity.  
  
“I reckoned you might be hungry after the day you’ve had,” Jack contributed, grunting slightly as he settled his old limbs into a chair tangentially next to the sofa that Aeryn was seated on. He placed a clutch of beer bottles next to the food, chilled and seemingly steaming from their open necks. “Down the hatch,” he added, swigging from a beer and making Aeryn’s cheeks flush with the memory of the last time a Crichton male had said that to her.  
  
“Hope you don’t mind. I just got some of my favourites,” Olivia rambled, oblivious to the memories filling Aeryn’s head.  “I don’t think you got time to try any of them last time.”  Aeryn was tired and dumbstruck. Everyone but Holt and his friends seemed so intent on being nice to her. Truth be told, she was more used to dealing with the likes of Holt and his generals. This was slightly outside her comfort zone.  
  
“Beer?” Jack motioned to the bottles. That sparked a memory of John telling her that pregnant women should avoid alcohol, for the sake of the baby.  
  
“Mmm, could I just have some water, please?” Aeryn asked, the situation making her feel slightly nervous.  
  
“Sure,” Jack was on his feet and off to the kitchen before Aeryn could even offer to get it herself. Her eyes switched from the door, now closing on Jack’s back, to Olivia’s face. Olivia was staring intently at her with what Aeryn took to be an amused grin which turned into a smirk when Aeryn realised she was subconsciously rubbing her belly with one hand.  
  
“When are you due?” Olivia asked, flooring Aeryn with her direct question and her apparent mind-reading skills.  
  
“Mmm…. Sooner than you might think,” Aeryn’s cheeks flushed and she stumbled over a reply, reluctant to say too much without John knowing – certainly after the last time she’d talked about the pregnancy with someone else before him.  
  
“Then I know what shops we ought to go to tomorrow,” Olivia snorted. To Aeryn’s relief she lapsed into silence and an arched eyebrow as Jack re-entered with a glass of water.   
  
“Best Chinese take-out in the neighbourhood. Tuck in,” Olivia encouraged, seeming to sense that Aeryn wouldn’t want to continue this conversation with Jack and without John.  Aeryn breathed a huge sigh of relief. There were things that she hadn’t had the chance to discuss with John yet, not least how imminent she expected the birth to be.  
  
Aeryn hadn’t seen anything quite like the dishes spread before her on her previous visit, so she just copied Olivia, starting by piling a plate with something lumpy coated in an orange sauce and something that looked like little white maggots sprinkled with tiny specks of other, more colourful food.  
  
She took a mouthful. The taste experience exploded on her tongue and even her fatigue and natural reserve couldn’t hide her delighted response to the wonders she was experiencing. It was a very long way from food cubes.  
  
“You like it, huh?” Olivia chuckled as, eyes wide and mouth full, Aeryn nodded in the affirmative. “Good, try some of this one next….”  
  
‘~’  
Aeryn stirred from her slumber at the sound of someone entering the darkened sleeping chamber. For just a microt she wondered where the frell she was. Then it all came flooding back: She was planetside, in Jack Crichton’s house. More specifically she was in John’s bed in Jack’s house. Olivia had guided her there soon after they had finished eating, having secured a promise that they would talk more tomorrow, and maybe go out shopping together if they could.  
  
John. She remembered that John hadn’t made it home before tiredness and a full stomach had lulled her off to sleep. Where the frell was he? Cool, crisp sheets and a bed fit for the Grand Chancellor himself cocooned Aeryn, while her stomach and head were comfortingly full of food. All of it combined to slow her, stopping her from leaping from the bed. Despite all of that, her Peacekeeper training had awoken her at the sound of someone entering the room and she was now fully alert, if not mobile.  
  
Starlight and moonlight spilled through the slightly parted curtains, providing just enough light to see by, showing her the identity of the intruder: She should have known it was John who had woken her, would have known even without his soothing, whispered words:  
  
“Hey babe, don’t worry, it’s only me – all done for the night,” John crooned, dropping his leathers to the floor between door and window. Typical untidiness from him, a small voice at the back of her head complained.  
  
“Mmm,” she grunted, her body still reluctant to move despite the alert state of her mind. She was content now that she knew that John had returned to her: no need to get up, anyway. He circled around to the other side of the bed and slipped in behind her, making the mattress buck and letting a rush of cooler air spill against her naked back. His warm body spooned up against her, while his strong arm circled her body and pulled them even closer together.  His nose burrowed into her hair until it found the delicate skin behind her ear.  
  
“Welcome to earth,” John whispered, planting a soft kiss on her neck. “And *kiss* Tomorrow I’m gonna *kiss* start showing you some of the wonders….”   
  
If John said anything more, Aeryn didn’t hear it – his mouth was too muffled by her skin and hair. And besides, there were more wonderful things for them both to do right then than talk, talk, talk….. Aeryn fervently hoped that Olivia didn’t expect an early start for that shopping expedition in the morning, because if she did, she was surely going to be disappointed.


	3. Waking Up Like An Emperor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John wakes up to some surprises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is my entry to my own SC: The Letterman List: “Earth, dad, pizza, sex, cold beer, fast cars, sex, Aeryn, and love.” John Crichton, Revenging Angel. With the addition of chocolate and ice cream, as I specified.
> 
> This is the next chapter in my slowly developing, going nowhere in particular, series of fics in response to Starburst challenges. 
> 
> These fics are a post Bad Timing AU. This time I’ve snurched lots of scenes and dialogue from the show. As usual none of this is mine and I don’t claim beneficial ownership any of it. I don’t own the snurched dialogue either.

John Crichton awoke to the welcome but somewhat unexpected sound of birds singing the dawn chorus outside of his bedroom window. Funny how four cycles away from Earth could make something so mundane and normal seem so alien to him. He rolled over, hoping to drift back off to sleep and expecting to find Aeryn lying in bed next to him, but all that he found there was a slight rumpling of the sheets.

Before John realised what he was even doing he was out of bed and quietly unholstering Winona from where she had been resting on the nightstand. His mind was racing: No sign of Aeryn, except for her clothes, neatly folded and set on the seat by the window, and her boots, standing to attention over beside the wardrobe. Part of him anxiously screamed that she would never go anywhere without her boots, while another part pointed out that she couldn’t possibly have been taken from the room against her will without him knowing.

The clock on the nightstand blinked 4.45 am in pale, red LED letters. Where the frell could she be? She was an early riser, but not this early.

Without even pausing to don clothing beyond the boxer shorts he had been sleeping in anyway, he slipped out onto the landing and began to quietly scour the house. Not in the family bathroom – the door was slightly ajar and the light was off. Surely not in Dad or Livvie’s rooms? The doors to both were firmly shut and no light or sound spilled from under the doors. Not even a furtive whisper. He was just about to check on the final, currently spare bedroom when a sound from downstairs caught his attention.

It sounded like someone was opening, closing and moving things around, probably in the kitchen.

He tiptoed downstairs. Was that bacon he could smell?

He steeled himself against the horrors he might find and pushed open the kitchen door with one hand, Winona at the ready in the other.

Aeryn sat perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, dressed only in her cutely utilitarian underwear. She was ploughing through an impressively high and eclectic selection of foodstuffs which she seemed to have scavenged from assorted kitchen cupboards, surfaces and from the fridge. She smiled wanly at him as he entered, unable to speak owing to cheeks being stuffed hamster-full with mouthfuls of food. He sighed and, with considerable relief, set Winona down on the counter top before pulling up a stool to sit opposite her.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he opened, daring to steal a rasher of sandwich bacon as she washed down her own mouthfuls-of-whatever with orange juice.

“The baby is starting to grow. I was hungry,” she explained in a typically matter-of-fact Aeryn way.

“Grow?” John frowned, squinting at her belly, trying to work out if it was any bigger than last night. It didn’t seem to be, not visibly anyway.

“It's a geometric pregnancy,” Aeryn added between bites of the apple that she had now moved on to.

“Please tell me that means we're gonna have a mathematician?” John laughed back, at ease now and abandoning his stupid, sleep-deprived attempt to assess the growth of her obviously still-washboard-flat stomach.

“A soldier more likely,” Aeryn snorted. “But we will be having it sooner than you think.”

“How sooner?” John asked, suddenly more awake and deadly serious. A visible pregnancy, here on Earth? Dren. Strike that, a visibly differently-progressing, half-alien pregnancy here on Earth. His alarm bells were already sounding and half-assed plans trying to form as to what he might need to do to protect Aeryn and the baby.

“With genetic modifications put into someone born into a battle unit like myself, essentially we're going to be parents in a matter of solar days,” Aeryn casually replied, seemingly unperturbed by the implications of her words. John guessed she didn’t see it quite the way he did – to her this was just another planet, why should anyone here care about her baby? John, however, was so stunned he struggled to formulate a reply.

“Days?” He squinted and stammered. “We… we don't have a name.”

“Already picked one.” Was she smirking at him? That looked like a playful smirk? She definitely didn’t seem worried, though. Unlike him.

“What?” He butted in. No, she couldn’t be smirking, John decided. Aeryn rarely smiled far less smirked, and she surely wouldn’t break her habitual non-indulgence in frivolity at this time of the morning?

That was when she produced the strangest of ululating, strangled sounds and fell into what looked like a satisfied silence.

“Excuse me?” John blurted out in reply, barely believing his ears. Normally the translator microbes did pretty well, but this time they were most certainly not performing slicker than snot.

“Do you not like it?” That was it. A most un-Aeryn like sad-face betrayed her lack of seriousness. He hoped.

“Uh, boy or girl?” He asked, still not entirely sure she was kidding.

“Either. It works for both,” she deadpanned.

“You just made a joke!” He accused, seeking confirmation of his earnest hope.

“Soldiers don't have a sense of humour, John.” She replied, still deadpan, before popping a big lump of chocolate in her mouth, disguising and suppressing her grin with a slow chew.

“You better have my pizza ready when I get home this evening,” John joked back, wiggling an eyebrow and stealing a matching lump of chocolate from her plate.

Aeryn arched an eyebrow and pulled Winona across to the countertop, spinning the pulse pistol towards him and raising it in the air and hefting it, wielding it with expert hands in semi-threat in answer. John chuckled his own amusement back at her as her twinkling eyes and half grin met his own gaze and challenged him to repeat his demands.

Despite the hour, John walked to the fridge and pulled out a cold beer. Dad and Livvy would be up soon. They’d probably been woken by her stupid baby name noise. They’d want to hear the news. Then there’d be the government and the press. Frell This whole insta-baby thing was going to take some explaining. He took a swig of beer, instantly regretting it. 5 am was definitely not Beer O’Clock.

As he sat back down John was gripped by an urge to garb Aeryn, leap into a fast car and just drive. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew that in this day and age that would prevent precisely no one from finding them. They were safest here, in plain sight, on home ground and with people he could trust around them.

He took a long pull from the frosted bottle, being slow to learn from the last one. He’d better start coming up with a plan.

“We’ve really gotta get married. Now,” John stated, giving voice to his thought before it even had time to fully form in his head: Hide in plain sight. The plainer the sight that they could hide in the better: Surely no one would dare act against them if they were the centre of public attention?

Aeryn pulled a quizzical face. “Mmm?”

“Everyone loves a fairy tale ending,” John tried to explain an idea that even he didn’t really understand yet. “And it’d give you and the baby more legal protection. Trust me,” he explained his train of thoughts even as they occurred to him, all the while suppressing and silencing the ominous memories of Noranti’s drug-fuelled dream wedding from nearly two cycles before. “We can’t hide the fact that we’re back on Earth. So it might make us safer in some ways if we are a public commodity. Maybe we sell the pictures from our wedding, enjoy our 15 minutes of fame, convince the world we’re just normal everyday folks? You’re Betty Crocker, not some cross between Wilma Deering and Sarah Connor, and I’m…”

“McGyver?” Aeryn interrupted. John floundered like a fish out of water for a few seconds, wondering where that remark came from, before recovering enough to continue.

“Yeah. Whatever. Then hopefully we can settle back into happy obscurity on the proceeds.”

Aeryn sighed and shook her head, giving him her ‘What fresh nonsense is this?” look.

“Well, it’d better be done quickly, or I can’t guarantee that our offspring won’t make an unexpected appearance in the middle of the ceremony,” Aeryn snorted back, patting her belly suggestively with one hand, while the other snapped a big cookie in half against the counter and lifted the residue to her lips.

Xxx

“It’s all arranged, son, for Saturday,” Jack announced with evident pride, even before John had managed to take off his jacket.

“What? What’s arranged?” John replied, still befuddled as he toed off his shoes. Whatever it was, Saturday was two days away. Plenty of time – why bother him with it now, couldn’t it wait? He’d had a long, irritating day of debriefing at the office, and he was just glad to be back home. And glad to see the always welcome sight of Aeryn walking up to greet him with a kiss. Maybe there’d be beer and pizza later if he was lucky. And if was really lucky, then maybe even later…

“Our wedding, idiot,” Aeryn kissed him uncharacteristically chastely on the lips, maybe in deference to Jack’s presence, an act which threw John’s train of thought for six.

“Great idea of yours, son,” Jack continued with a smug, excited grin. “I called this great PR guy I know first thing after breakfast. Used to work for NASA, then he went Hollywood a few years back, fixing things for celebrities. And he thought it was a great idea, too. Not only that, with his contacts it’s amazing how quickly these things can be arranged. And it won’t cost a cent – quite the opposite. Just sell the photos, do some interviews…”

“But… What? How?” John spluttered, still feeling completely befuddled.

“Welcome to the world of the celebrity wedding, son.”

“All I have to do is choose a dress,” Aeryn beamed. “Or so I was told,” she added with a frown, as though the thought of wearing a dress had sunk in and the concept was somehow alien and disturbing to her. Which, John guessed, it almost certainly was. She shook her head. “You owe me…” she muttered, shifting her weight uncomfortably, confirming John’s suspicions.

“She’s leaving all the menus, seating plans, bridesmaid’s outfits, flowers… all the rest of it to you,” Jack winked. “I’m not sure whether you should be horrified or relieved!” He teased.

John was still slack-jawed, trying to take it all in. “You… we… umm… uhhh?”

“It’s OK, son, we’ll order pizza, crack open some beers and work our way down the checklist Pete’s people sent over. It’ll only take an hour. Trust me. It’ll all be fine,” Jack reassured John, steering the dazed groom-to-be with a gentle hand on his elbow through into the living room. “They’ll sort out everything.”

Xxx

“No, John!” Livvy insisted. “You absolutely cannot stay and help Aeryn choose her dress.”

“But…!”

“It’s bad luck, for starters!” Livvy stated, pushing him down the hall, towards the front door. “Besides, your car is here to take you to record your interview with that TV pundit… whatsisname?”

“Letterbox!” Aeryn unhelpfully shouted from the living room.

“Letterman! But why’s it just me that has to go?” John whined, ignoring the car and the chat show commitment, in a last ditch attempt either to stay and see if the reality of dress shopping matched up to his Aeryn-in-a-wedding-dress-shop-fantasy. Or, failing that, to share the misery of having to spend the evening talking to a chat-show host with his nearest and dearest.

“After last time? You really want Aeryn to talk to some TV pundit?” Livvy chastised, brushing a mote from the shoulder of his jacket, flicking his fringe into place and unlatching the front door. “Say she’s struggling with her English if they ask.”

“But…”

“Just go. We’ll be fine.”Livvy reassured him, all but pushing him through the door and slamming it behind him.

As he reluctantly headed down the garden path towards the open door of the waiting Town Car he could have sworn he heard the sound of Livvy and Aeryn laughing indoors.

Xxx

It was a fine showing at the wedding and at the reception. Just a few close friends and family. His friends and family, of course. Oh, and a whole boatload of assorted dignitaries, journalists and celebrities that they somehow seemed to have been contractually obliged to invite. Still, he wasn’t paying for their free party and neither was Talyn Lyczac, the absent father of the bride, so John found he could just blank out all of the unknown hangers on and pretend that they weren’t there, just so long as they kept to Their Side of the venue.

It was just a shame that D’Argo, Pip, Pilot and Rygel couldn’t attend. Hell, he’d have settled for Sputnik or Noranti, even, as a substitute for Jool-from-his-dream-cum-nightmare of his and Aeryn’s Earth wedding. He just wished some of their friends could have been there.

It was Jack’s speech that John had been dreading the most. Not because of what he might say, but because THAT was when it all went horribly wrong in his vision.

“Everybody - I want to propose a toast to my son - and my new daughter,” Jack began. It was all pretty much as John remembered it. Frell. “Y'all know their incredible story - the odds they had to beat and the good fortune that brought 'em home safe and sound.” John held his breath and tensed the muscles in his arms and jaw, waiting for the shoe to drop. He noticed Aeryn noticing his nervousness, frowning at him in concern. “So please join me in wishing the new Mr and Mrs Crichton all the best for their future lives together – may they enjoy every peace and happiness together.”

John let out his breath and smiled wanly, apologetically, to Aeryn. The Peacekeepers hadn’t attacked. Nothing untoward happened. Jack had finished speaking and sat down. It was all going to be OK.

And then it was John’s turn to give a speech. He was still a little on edge from memories of his drug-induced vision as he stood and glanced down at Aeryn for support. She gave him what he needed with a squeeze of his hand and a radiant smile. John took a big breath, forced the happy smile he knew he should have been wearing at his wedding and opened his mouth.

“Well, thank y’all for coming. And thank you to the people who organised all of this. Y’all did an amazing job, and Aeryn and me… well, we’re very grateful.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Now there are certain other people convention says I ought to thank on this occasion. And, conventionally, they would all be here for me to embarrass them. But sadly, many of them could’nt be. So, to start with, Aeryn and I would like to remember my good friends Doug and Laura Knox. They shoulda been here.” John paused for a good ten seconds or so in respectful silence.

“Of course, we have other friends we would dearly love to have been here, too:” John continued. “D’Argo, Chiana, Pilot, Moya, and, even though he would probably have stolen and eaten the cake by now, Rygel. These people became my friends, sorry, our friends and family through my time on the other side of the wormhole, a time when, speaking just for myself now, a number of thoughts kept me going: Earth, dad, pizza, sex, cold beer, fast cars, sex, Aeryn, and love. Oh, and chocolate and ice cream. And of course, Aeryn. Did I mention Aeryn? She’s been my constant, my guiding star. The centre of my Universe, wherever I found myself. Now I’m home, it seems for good, and Aeryn has agreed to marry me, and it’s great that we’ve found that she loves beer, chocolate and ice cream. And fast cars. Especially fast cars,” John paused for a beat, riding the laugh, waiting for it to subside. Aeryn glared at him, as everyone expected her to. “Almost as much as I do.” He winked, releasing the tension and earning himself a playful backhanded slap from Aeryn. “Everything is good. Really good. Great, in fact. All of which means that tomorrow I’m going to wake up in bed, next to my gorgeous wife, feeling like an Emperor. And that works for me.” John paused, signalling he was done. Jack led the round of applause and soon everyone joined in.

“Thank you all for coming,” John announced as the applause began to subside. “Which, of course, means that it’s time for me to shut up and for you to enjoy your dessert and then the band.”

xxx

“Hey gorgeous,” John drawled, coming up behind Aeryn and claiming her away from his dad with a kiss and a hand on her shoulder as they circulated among the chattering crowd thronging on the dance floor. “You wear this dress, someone’s gonna marry you.”

Jack, overhearing chuckled and John looked up and caught his eye, “Dad, can I steal my wife away from you for a dance?”

“Sure thing, son,” Jack smiled and nodded, then waved to the band to strike up a slow dance for the bride and groom’s first dance.

“John,” Aeryn whispered as the floor cleared around them, speaking sebacean, maybe so few other guests could understand. “I don’t know how to dance.”

“Sure you do: You stand on my toes and put your hands on my shoulders,” he winked and she complied as best she could. “Comfy?” Aeryn nodded, and he began to shuffle around to the slow rhythm of the band. He just knew she was remembering their dance on Katratzi as she smiled nervously at him and clung on – so was he. But this time he was reclaiming it as an entirely happy memory, for both of them. Then she sighed contentedly and rested her head on his shoulder. He breathed her in, sharing her contentment.

Her hair smelled of apples and felt like silk against his cheek and hand.

And as the band played on John thought that everything was indeed pretty much perfect. Earth, sex, Aeryn and love. What else could a guy need to feel like an Emperor, after all? Apart, perhaps, from a good night’s sleep.

 


	4. A Scary Number?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head with a Bump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in response to JJ’s Starburst Challenge #97: to use prime numbers as a key part of the story and for it to be fun/funny. I hope I have hit the mark, although be warned, there is a somewhat angsty interlude in this story, too.
> 
> Thanks Once again to Vinegardog for the beta read

John awoke with a start and with a feeling of considerable discombobulation.  
  
As he struggled to process where he was and force open his eyelids he became aware of a number of things:  
  
One. There were birds singing loudly somewhere nearby. Way too loudly. Unreasonably loudly for little birdies. The sound hurt his head.  
  
Two. His mouth felt like Moya’s Trill bats had defecated in there at some point and subsequently the passage of time had allowed the effluvia to dry out.  
  
Three. And perhaps not entirely unconnected with Point One and Point Two, he appeared to have something of a hangover.  
  
Yes, the last item was clearly the most significant. The one from which the significance of the others hung. He licked his lips, trying to moisturize his buccal cavity.  
  
Groaning with the sudden realization that his current circumstances could be traced back to his unwisely excessive alcohol consumption the previous evening at his wedding party, he risked forcing open an eyelid.  
  
It proved to be an ill-advised venture.  
  
Aeryn loomed over him, a disapprovingly arched eyebrow signaling her apparent displeasure at his inexcusably derelict condition. From her expression John concluded that spending their wedding night in an expensive hotel suite might have been somewhat wasted on him as a result of said alcohol consumption. Whoops.  
  
“Hey, baby?” he tried a disarming grin. She tsked it right back at him. “How’s it feel to be married to the most eligible male in…?”  
  
“I ordered breakfast. Room service will be here in…” she glanced at the bedside clock. “Five macrots. So if you have any self-respect I suggest you make your way to the refresher before they arrive,” she punctuated her instructions by zipping up her tight black catsuit with an air of some finality quite at odds with the alluring way it framed her growing curves. “Unless you are still too sleepy to move?”  
  
John rolled out of the hotel bed in order to do as instructed. As he did so he stifled a grin: Despite everything, Aeryn hadn’t been able to keep the amusement out of her voice or of her lips. They were good, although good for what exactly he dared not venture to guess.  
  
“Nah, I’m not Sleepy, Snow White, I’m just Grumpy. Maybe Dopey?” He winked at her. “Skin white as snow, hair black as ebony…” he burbled half to himself, half to her as he shuffled towards the bathroom. “Bump as big as a…”  
  
“And don’t forget we have an appointment with the Diagnosan at 11!” she called out, interrupting him. “For me and the baby, not for your head! Although maybe while we’re there we could get it examined…?” she added in amused mockery.  
  
“That’s doctor, Aeryn,” he bravely called out before wisely bolting the door for his own protection. Eww. He really wished he hadn’t slid the bolt home so loudly.  
  
How could he forget the diag… doctor, though? Even overnight Aeryn’s belly seemed to have grown significantly larger. She was starting to look like a sexy black-leather blimp. The baby would surely be along any day now. It was shaping up to be the oddest honeymoon on record! Another Crichton First, John tried not to laugh as he turned the shower on and squeezed out a glob of shampoo.  
  
‘~’  
  
“If you can just slip into the gown and hop up on the bed, Dr Leibniz will be with you in just a jiffy,” the smiling nurse at the expensive private clinic advised Aeryn as she escorted the expectant couple into a glossy examination room.  
  
Aeryn did as instructed while John made himself busy checking out the room. It had been a joint decision of theirs and their PR guru to use this clinic – apparently the place was used to dealing with celebrities with complete discretion and, importantly for John, a bonus feature was that they were not a branch of the government. The thought that someone on the official payroll could be cajoled or coerced into seeing Aeryn and their kid as a science project gave him the heebie-jeebies.  
  
Just as Aeryn was settling herself on the bed, Dr Leibniz joined them: she was an expensively dressed woman in her mid-forties with angular, attractive features and a shock of long curly blonde hair. John did a double take. She definitely reminded him of someone, but he tried not to stare lest Aeryn take it entirely the right, sorry, wrong way.   
  
If Dr Leibniz was similarly surprised at the sight of her doppelganger she did a remarkable job of not letting it show, while her words remained effortlessly neutral and professional. “Well, looks like we can expect delivery…  very soon.”  
  
“Maybe tomorrow,” Aeryn nodded, confirming the information that Leibniz was obviously fishing for.  
  
“Tomorrow? That’s different.” Leibniz remarked as she settled herself between the ultrasound machine and the bed. “We’d better get a move on and take a look at the little passenger, then, hadn’t we?” She continued, lifting a big tube of lubricating jelly.  
  
Aeryn watched warily while John tried to settle her nerves by calmly sitting next to her and taking her hand.  
  
“So, Mrs Crichton, this won't take long…  we should get our first glimpse of the little one in a few moments…it might feel a little cold…”  
  
“It’s OK, she likes the cold,” John dared to remark, even as Aeryn winced at the first touch of the ultrasound probe.  
  
“On a personal note, I just want to thank you for coming to me…  It’s such an honour. The first Human-Sebacean….”  
  
“So, what’s Junior look like?” John interrupted, having spotted Aeryn’s annoyed sigh and rolling eyes, and decided to intervene before the gushing medic got too embarrassing or Aeryn lost her equilibrium. They had come to her, amongst other reasons, to escape their baby becoming some sort of spectacle, after all.  
  
“Just a mo…” Leibniz twiddled with the controls on her ultrasound. “We should see your little one in…”  
  
“One?” Aeryn frowned. “Are there not seven foetuses?” Aeryn asked, her deadpan question causing a sharp intake of breath from John. He stared at her questioningly. She arched both eyebrows right back at him. John could feel his panic rising. What hadn’t she been telling him?  
  
“Seven!?” Dr Leibniz evidently also couldn’t disguise her surprise. “Is that normal for…?”  
  
“That’s a litter, not a baby, Aeryn!” John protested. She smiled enigmatically. John began to smell a rat. “Seven seems rather a lot?” he ventured.  
  
“Seven.” Aeryn nodded earnestly in reiteration, causing both John and Leibnitz some consternation. She flicked her ebony locks off the snow-white skin of her shoulder. “One for each dwarf I recreated with when I was hiding out…” Leibnitz looked shocked, but John finally caught on and began to grin.  Aeryn finally grinned back at him.  
  
“Seriously, Aeryn, why seven…?” John ventured. Leibnitz seemed to have been shocked into silence, which was some sort of result.  
  
“Seven is a very important number,” Aeryn replied with a shrug. “It’s a prime. And it is a geometric pregnancy. Or is that logarithmic? You tell me, you’re the rocket scientist. I’m just a simple soldier.”  
  
“Aerrrryyynnnn,” John gave a warning grin to his wife and rolled his eyes towards Leibniz. “You’re freaking out the doc,” he clarified, sotto voce.  
  
Dr Leibnitz, however, finally seemed to get the joke and joined in with a smile, “Here you go, Mrs Crichton,” she turned the screen a few degrees to help Aeryn to see it better. “Your baby looks perfect. Although there is only the one of them, I’m afraid.”    
  
‘~’  
  
John’s heart swelled with happiness and pride as he watched Aeryn. She was cradling their newborn baby as she was wheeled to the clinic’s door in the obligatory but ridiculous wheelchair. Once outside she stood to step towards their waiting car.  
  
They were not alone, however: Somehow word seemed to have gotten out about the birth of the first human-alien hybrid baby.  The impromptu crowd of well-wishers and gawkers dwarfed an obnoxious knot of protesters. As far as John could tell from the shouts and banners, their main beef was that it was some sort of affront to God and Nature and that the three of them just shouldn’t exist on principle. John was half tempted to tell them just where they could stick their imaginary friend, their bigotry and their dumb-ass ideas, but he wanted this to be a happy moment.  
  
Then, just as he thought he had suppressed the angry feeling and returned all of his attention to his wife and baby, a sharp, cracking noise rang out.  
  
John watched in horror as, as though in slow motion, and with a shocked look on her beautiful face, Aeryn began to crumple down onto the kerb beside the car. A crimson stain was already blooming from the bundle of blanket she still clutched in her arms. Even as John rushed to support her a second matching stain became visible beneath, spreading across her white tank top.  
Her jaw flapped, as though she was trying to speak to express her incomprehension and terror at what was happening, but no words came out.  
  
“Baby….” He stroked her brow, too terrified to even look at the bloody bundle she still clutched to her chest like some sort of talisman linking the worlds of the living and the dead. She was on the ground now and he was crouched over her. It was all happening so fast, yet it shouldn’t have been happening at all.  
  
“Don’t worry about me, I’ve never felt better,” she forced the words from her lips. No! This was so wrong!  
  
It just couldn’t be! He refused to accept this!  
  
John awoke in a cold sweat, a scream of denial already half formed on his lips. His eyes turned, desperate to confirm to his mind that it was all just a horrible dream.  
  
Aeryn’s beautiful back was turned towards him, gently stirring in her sleep in response to him as she tiptoed the tightrope between sleep and wakefulness.  
  
John had never been so relieved in his life. He could still barely accept that what he had just experienced was nothing but a bad dream.  
  
It might have all been in his head, but there was something believable about the whole thing. He was going to have to see about upping the security arrangements to protect his family.  
  
‘~’  
  
“Let me know if I can help!” John prattled as another contraction caused Aeryn to grimace and clamp his hand in a vice-like grip. It had only been thirteen hours since the ultrasound: Sun-Crichton Junior certainly wasn’t hanging about.  
  
“I think you've done enough already,” she snarled through gritted teeth. “If this was a Sebacean child, a pure one, it would've been born long ago.”  Leibnitz raised an eyebrow at that but made no comment. She seemed to be filing the remark away for what John suspected was the inevitable paper in the NEJM. “So, how long is this going to take?” Aeryn snarled.  
  
“Shouldn’t be much longer now,” Leibnitz reassured her. “The baby’s head is crowning.”  
  
Another scream from Aeryn punctuated the doctor’s advice. “Argh! Is this normal?” Aeryn demanded.  
  
Leibnitz confirmed that it was, with a nod and a perfunctory “Yes,” Sparing little more attention than that from the task at hand.  
  
“I have killed men for less!” Aeryn snarled at John, who took it in his stride, responding only with what he hoped was a disarming grin.  
  
“Time to push, Aeryn!” Leibnitz gently but urgently instructed. “Yes! Good girl!” the doctor encouraged over Aeryn’s screams, growls and curses.  
  
And then soon, surprisingly soon, it was all over. Leibnitz and the midwife moved around them swiftly, with practiced efficiency, guiding his hands to cut the cord without any intervention on the part of his brain and, before John felt that he could really appreciate, take in and revel in the moment it was all done: A cleaned, clamped baby was presented to Aeryn. Aeryn gratefully took the child from Dr Leibnitz and cradled it in her arms. As she kissed the downy top of its head John heard her whisper. “Three… is not such a scary number after all.”  
  
For a brief moment, as he surveyed the scene, taking in a happy but exhausted Aeryn nursing their tiny but perfect son, John felt unbelievably happy. He had never felt such a moment of perfect contentment before.  
  
Then John’s blood ran cold as he recalled his dream: Three might not be that scary, but 6 billion certainly was. Perhaps closing the wormhole hadn’t been such a great idea, after all?


	5. Mission Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aeryn faces one of her toughest ever challenges, something so alien, so confusing, so difficult that she will need John’s help like never before.  
> Written for Vinegardog's SC99, which was to write about two charatcers doing a task together and each reflecting on something in their past. And to do it all in dialogue.

 

“John! Stop making excuses and come and help me fill in this frelling form!”

“Aeryn, you know how I feel about you…”

“Don’t be such a drannit. It’s what I want. I applied and I’ve been accepted. I’m doing this with or without your help. You ought to be happy for me that I have found a suitable job on this frelling backwater planet of yours.”

“Oh, Aeryn, of all the things you could have… What if something should happen..? What about me? What about Deke?”

“Just sit down and frelling help me, will you!?”

“Fine. Fine. Look, I know my dad says it’s not that dangerous, but when I was in Senior High…”

“Sex?”

“Well, you are the female of your species… aren’t you?”

“Oh, fine. I thought…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Place and date of birth?”

“Overseas… Put down Sydney, Australia and… I dunno. Just say 11th October 1972. Look. There was this guy I knew. He was a couple of years older than me and had been on the Football team. He worked on the squad. His first day… his very first day… he got caught up in a drug bust, a gang thing.”

“What does “Next Of Kin” mean?”

“That would be me. Then Deke, then dad. Aeryn. And that is just the sort of thing I am talking about, The first day… The very first day he was in a shootout.”

“Ethnicity? And I’ve been in lots of shootouts.”

“We both have. But I don’t have to like it.”

“But I’ve been in more. And besides, I like it. Shooting makes me feel better.”

“Just put ‘White: Other”. Look, those were different.”

“How so? Religion?”

“Just tick None..."

"But I could have joined some crazy Sebacean cult when you weren't looking."

"... or Other then. They were different because we didn’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice, John. And this is mine. I want to use my skills and contribute to the society I live in.”

“But there must be other ways you could contribute?”

“Your airforce won’t let me fly combat missions and I thought we agreed that that offer from Playboy was inappropriate. Do I regard myself as having a disability?”

“Only pathological stubbornness.”

“How do you spell paleological?”

“No! Don’t write that down!”

“And what’s a disability anyway?”

“Something the PKs would have executed you for having, I expect.”

“Oh, well, no, then.”

“You can skip that next bit. I’m sure they don’t need to know about our criminal record in the UTs.”

“Look I know you don’t want me to do this.”

“Really? What was your first clue?”

“John. When I was 17 cycles old – isn’t that about the same age you would have been in Senior High? – The Senior Officer in charge of my squadron was in an accident. She lost both her legs and one arm…”

“And let me guess – the Peacekeepers retired her with extreme prejudice… for being disabled?”

“John..!”

“Sorry.”

“But no, the Peacekeeper Med Techs saved her life and everyone did everything they could to find a new role for her.”

“Well, that’s not normally how your stories of the good old days…”

“Just shut up and listen for once. She could not adjust to no longer being a useful member of the unit. She took her own life.”

“Aeryn, you’re not..? You wouldn’t!?”

“No, of course not. But you need to understand how important it is, with my upbringing, to contribute, to have a role.”

“But you do have a role. Since Deke…”

“Don’t… I mean, being a mother is important, but it isn’t everything. I need to be more than that. Did I try to talk you out of taking that job at IASA?”

“That’s hardly the same thing…”

“Really? I’m a mother. You’re a father. And I don’t want to lose you to another wormhole.”

“Trust me, you won’t.”

“So trust me. Besides, your dad says working SWAT these days isn't any more dangerous than working any other profession. Now, what are our ‘bank details?’“

“They’re the numbers that identify our bank account, honey.”

“Crichton…!”

 


End file.
